NOME I. MIAGITE. 



direction the Miagite be cut, the nodules appear 

 the same, so that the globular form is complete. 

 It is also observable that Laet, a writer of the se- 

 venteenth century, has quoted a preceding au- 

 thor, Imperati, to this effect : " I must not pass 

 in silence a very remarkable kind of marble, and 

 hitherto undescribed, if I am not deceived. It 

 is brought from an island in the gulf of Genoa, 

 called Monte Cristo ; and its colour is a greenish 

 white, but it is all marked with black equidis- 

 tant lines. It is extremely hard, and very rare, 

 so that we have only small fragments."* He 

 then gives a print, which corresponds with one 

 of the rocks described by Saussure. The Tiege- 

 rerz of the Germans, which ought rather to be 

 styled Leoparderz, being spotted, not striped, 

 ivith black, may also belong to this stone. If 

 Saussure had been aware of these instances, he 

 would perhaps have argued that in his grand 

 debacle these stones had been rolled from the 

 3re-eminent height of Mont Blanc to the islands 

 ^f Corsica and Monte Cristo, before the forma- 

 ;ion of the Mediterranean Sea. 



* Laet De Gemmis et Lapidibus, 1647, 8vo. p. 167- Imperati 

 nforms us that, in his time, all the stones used in architecture were 

 ailed marbles; while those employed in personal decoration were 

 tyled gems. 



